Welcome to Part Three of our WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive new traffic automatically to your website using WordPress.
In Part One of this article series, we provided an overview of the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do to drive traffic is post web content regularly!)
In Part Two, we focused on critical setup decisions. We helped you understand the best way to start if you don’t have a website yet, how to set things up if you already have a site, and what to do if your website was built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up a WordPress website on your domain)
In this section, we discuss the configuration stage of this process. We explain how a WordPress site should be configured to bring traffic automatically simply by adding web content on your web site.
WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase
The ability to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by most business owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. Businesses are becoming so much more competitive and are exploring any opportunity they can to improve their performance online.
Being able to generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a tremendous competitive advantage. For businesses, having an expertly configured website gives WordPress users a flying start as soon as their site is launched.
The Configuration Phase Is The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally set up by a website-building expert but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s a simple way to describe the differences:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a professional web presence and an automated online business marketing tool!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence and an automated online business marketing system!)
Not only does it take extra work to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special type of expertise.
Let’s illustrate this with an anecdote.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
Everything is going well in the gizmo workshop when things grind to a sudden stop.
As no one can figure out what’s gone wrong, the floor manager decides to call in an expert.
The expert arrives within in less than an hour and, without uttering a word, heads straight towards the main control box. After staring silently at the wiring board for 2 minutes or less, the expert then takes out a tiny hammer and makes a gentle tap about 1 inch from the right edge of the unit.
Immediately, every machine springs back to life.
The plant manager is greatly relieved as he thanks the expert, who then leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the factory manager receives a request for payment of services rendered for $5,000.
Furious, the factory manager dials the expert. Demanding to know why the expert has charged them so much for so little time spent delivering a minimal amount of work, he then requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrives and is placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new traffic to their sites.
How much money did the gizmo factory stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one in the factory floor was able to fix it? Did the expert not have the right to be compensated fairly for years spent acquiring the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to quickly assess and avert a crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a WP web site configured so all you ever had to do is publish content to it and search engines, social sites and dozens of other web properties would be instantly notified, how much time and money would you save?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors to your website?)
Although many experts often make complex things look easy, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site requires more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few internal settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which plugins need to be installed to get desired functionalities on your site.
- Which third-party accounts need to be set up to get desired outcomes
- Which internal and external settings need to be configured in order to make sure everything will function as envisioned, etc.
(Generating traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This part of the traffic automation system is not technically challenging, but it’s quite involved. It’s not as easy as installing a piece of software, clicking a button, or tweaking some settings in your dashboard area … it’s all this and much more.
The configuration phase involves the integration of many parts such as your web server, your WP site, and a number of third-party sites and services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few settings in WordPress)
If the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look like this …
(A simplistic flowchart showing the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at these steps.
Server Configuration
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your hosting account for site installation purposes. We’re talking about configuring settings and options in your server that affect how your site will handle all web traffic …
(During the configuration stage, your web-hosting account settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the traffic you will attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, is about evaluating your needs, planning for good and unwelcome traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include things like spam protection and security threat prevention, to configuring domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like emails, page error redirects, etc?)
After your server settings have been checked and configured, the next step is to configure various external sites and/or online solutions.
External Accounts
The concept behind setting up external sites is that all of your content should be published from a central location (your site) and from there, it will get syndicated automatically to other components of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once you add these external services to your traffic system, content linking back to your site will get automatically posted to these platforms, indexed by search engines and shared to other social media accounts, even to users of the platform itself. Your website will then be exposed to new sources of traffic and new audiences.
Some sites will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress site to speed up the configuration process and some will need to be done later, during the automation phase.
For example, you will want to set up the following accounts before configuring your settings:
Google Webmasters
(Google Search Console)
Google Search Console lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with useful data, tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
After setting up your account and entering site data, use this information with web traffic-related settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s traffic performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account has been set up, you can add visitor tracking code to WordPress using plugins and feed data instantly to many other useful applications.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. Once your Bing Webmaster Tools account has been set up, your account details can be used with web traffic settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO – see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part 2, WordPress offers both the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you plan to grow a professional online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, which a number of WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your automated web traffic generation system in the next installment of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and attract new visitors to your site)
You will need to set up your social media accounts before you can configure these as part of your traffic generation system.
Once you have set up and configured everything, you will be able to syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and attract new traffic to your site.
You should have accounts with all the big social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.
There are many social bookmarking sites you can set up accounts with and syndicate your content to. You don’t need to go crazy, just pick those that will work with your system and/or content sharing tools (we will review some of these tools in more detail when we discuss the Automation phase).
(There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can syndicate your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are many new online technology platforms and content aggregators that can serve as secondary-level traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free levels, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your own RebelMouse social feed.
There are many different technologies and third-party applications you can incorporate into your own web traffic system. Please contact us if you would like to explore some of these and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your web server and set up external service accounts, it’s time to configure your site.
WordPress – Configuring Your Website Or Blog For Traffic
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some of the important points.
Global Settings – WordPress
By default, all WordPress installations include a Settings section that allows you to configure your site’s global settings …
(WordPress dashboard menu – Settings)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most powerful and often overlooked traffic notification systems available to website owners …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings)
As described in the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you or your webmaster have intentionally configured your site settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically notify the list of services entered into the Update Services field
By default, only one service is listed …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically …
(You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress!)
Download A Comprehensive List Of Ping Services For Your WordPress Site!
Click the link below to download a comprehensive list of reliable and authoritative ping services for your WordPress site or blog:
Download A List Of Ping Services For Your WordPress Site
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Note: If you need help setting up the list of ping services on your site, we recommend using a professional web services provider. You can find professional WordPress service providers in our WordPress Services Directory.
Reading Settings
This section affects how your content gets seen by visitors when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can have an influence traffic. For example, your choice to display the full content vs summaries of your post, affects how your content shows up in RSS feeds and blog post digests, and could impact someone’s decision to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your blog to read the rest of the content from a partial feed, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
As far as traffic is concerned, however, the main setting in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is ticked or not.
Normally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables WordPress to automatically notify your list of update services whenever new posts are published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, make sure this box is left unchecked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings)
Discussion Settings
Although discussion settings are mostly concerned with how users engage with content on your site, you have the option to allow notifications to blogs linked to from your content, and to allow link notifications from other blogs (pingbacks and trackbacks). This can work for you, but it can also drive bad traffic in the form of SPAM comments …
(Settings Menu – Discussion Settings)
Permalink Settings
Your Permalink settings allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalinks)
Here are some of the options for configuring your site’s permalinks …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
We have written a detailed tutorial about using permalinks here: How To Improve Your WordPress SEO Using SEO-Friendly URLs
WordPress – Traffic Plugins
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that can add just about every type of functionality to your site, including traffic generation.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help drive more traffic to your site
Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for dealing with the effects of both good traffic and bad traffic. Regardless of the type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you simply cannot afford to ignore the importance of web security.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to bot and hacker attacks.
To learn more, go here:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your website more search engine friendly …
(WordPress SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help drive traffic by improving your site’s ability to rank better in search engines)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can significantly improve your site’s SEO. When properly configured, this plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google to find and index, it also lets you specify how to display your content to Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content online can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if you publish content that adds real value to readers.
(You can add social sharing buttons to your site easily using WordPress plugins)
You can easily add social features to your website with free or inexpensive plugins.
Most social share plugins let you specify which social sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some social sharing plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content or downloads which visitors can unlock by sharing your page.
Configuring Settings – WP Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help improve your site’s traffic generation capabilities.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring the layout and design of your site, some themes also include built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site navigation structure for faster indexing, add tracking snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes like Graphene (a highly customizable free theme) include built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of quality themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your website is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in social sharing features)
Configuring Other WordPress Sections
Last but not least in the web traffic configuration process, are the elements that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Legal Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only for both good and unwelcome traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong when more and more people find and begin to visit your website.
If you engage in any form of business online, you need to make sure that your website stays compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
We have created a detailed article about how to quickly and easily add legal pages to your WordPress website or blog here:
WordPress Post Categories And Tags
Post tags & categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s SEO.
(Categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better index your web pages.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to review and set up your website’s post tags and categories earlier on, during the Website Planning Stage.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post tags and categories have been correctly set up to deliver optimal results.
A Site Map Of Your Posts And Pages
A site map that lists all of your site’s posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external applications find your web content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for web traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are two different things. Although search engines like Google will index your pages just from an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
Don’t Forget Your WordPress 404 Page Not Found
When online visitors type in the wrong URL into their web browser or click on an invalid hyperlink, they are greeted with an error page (known as a 404 Not Found page) …
(A 404 Not Found page)
A 404 Not Found page can be configured into a useful source of traffic to your functional pages …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found error page can be set up in your server, there are WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once you have your site expertly configured and fully set up, all you have to do then is add great content consistently to automatically begin attracting more traffic.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of different components and web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The skills and knowledge required to perform the configuration process can take some web developers a long time to learn.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the aspects of the process that can be automated. This step is addressed in the next article in the series.
This is the end of Section Three
To read more, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of articles aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online cost-effectively with a WordPress website and proven web marketing methods.
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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group
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